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[Vidak]

Hey, good luck with the demo, I'm looking forward to playing it! You seem to be making a lot of progress quickly, kudos for that.

Teching the player how to play is always difficult, I always want to avoid forcing the player to read any text. Learn by doing, so there is a "ghost tutorial" which is like a short replay system that jumps around and shows the player what to do. So far it's been teaching the player some different moves that I would have trouble with teaching through text. I think it's working very well.

I think part of the fun in these kinds of games is learning how the physics works, and figuring out these kinds of moves on your own. Do you think the game will lose some of that if you teach these moves explicitly? To me, this feels a bit more like "learn by showing" rather than "learn by doing", if that makes sense.

Also, that thing about the camera following the players rotation looks nauseating. You could keep that as an optional setting, and use it for some hardcore achievements(e.g. do X with a rotating camera).

[JobLeonard]

I get your point but OTOH we get clear instructions for QWOP and it's still a pain to not suck at it

[kevin andersson]

Hey, good luck with the demo, I'm looking forward to playing it! You seem to be making a lot of progress quickly, kudos for that.

Teching the player how to play is always difficult, I always want to avoid forcing the player to read any text. Learn by doing, so there is a "ghost tutorial" which is like a short replay system that jumps around and shows the player what to do. So far it's been teaching the player some different moves that I would have trouble with teaching through text. I think it's working very well.



I think I might add some option to toggle the "ghost tutorials". So people can decide for themselves

I think part of the fun in these kinds of games is learning how the physics works, and figuring out these kinds of moves on your own. Do you think the game will lose some of that if you teach these moves explicitly? To me, this feels a bit more like "learn by showing" rather than "learn by doing", if that makes sense.

Also, that thing about the camera following the players rotation looks nauseating. You could keep that as an optional setting, and use it for some hardcore achievements(e.g. do X with a rotating camera).

[kevin andersson]

I don’t wanna know if this is the third or fourth time I say that I’ve got a lot of stuff done since last time! Before I dive into everything I want to let everyone know that the Hoplegs demo comes out on February 3rd, so check out the Steam page to grab it (and wishlist). https://store.steampowered.com/app/1395830/Hoplegs/

Twitch Category
I’m excited to have Hoplegs as a Twitch category so everyone who’s streaming it can now have that active!

Dynamic Controller Swap
So when I felt that the demo was finished I sent it out to some selected few to see how the game ran for them and that was very valuable. I noticed some minor issues and hiccups they ran into. The biggest concern for me while they played was if they would pick the wrong input system and want to change mid-game. Before they had to restart the game and when the “press any key” came up they would have to use the new controller. Now as long as you’re playing single player it will swap to the new controller which so far seems to work perfectly (don’t quote me on that in the future).



Decorations & Foreground
My confidence in doing art is growing but that also means that it’s the biggest iteration process in this game. I’ve been improving some background art so it doesn’t pop too much inside of castles.

Something I added was a foreground layer with blurry silhouettes and honestly I really like it! It adds some depth. But between you and me.. I wish that they were a little more discrete but due to how the outline shader is working that’s not possible right now without it looking odd.. So maybe for the future as right now I need to focus on other parts of the game. In general I really like it!



Sounds
So I don’t have a gif here but my audio guy (Nate) has been working a lot on ambience sounds and general sound effects. I think it’s really good and it just helps the game get a better feeling so I’m really happy with how it sounds now when you play!

Accessibility and alternative input
A feature that was very requested was to have the icons not rotate along the player, while I prefer when they don’t do that I want to allow the player to pick which they prefer. I’m not sure if I’ll have it as a hot swap icon in the corner as it is right now or just keep it in the settings menu, we’ll see what people think during the demo. In general I’ve seen people swapping between specific obstacles such as slopes and some wall jump sequences.

I’ve also decided to add a bunch of accessibility options such as game speed so you can play the game in a bit of slow-motion if you need it. Add some extra force jumps as well!



Leaderboards
Perhaps the biggest addition to the demo, someone suggested during a livestream that I should do it and after giving it some thought I tried to add it and it wasn’t that difficult. Seeing people jumping back in previous levels to beat the “par time” per level and climb the leaderboards made me really happy. Not the biggest replayability but for some this really gets them going. So happy to see this!



Editor workflow improvement
This is probably the best editor improvement in a while when it comes to speeding up the workflow. You can now swap between which trees or decorations to place before actually placing them. This is the last thing that I wanted to make when it comes to making a level in the level editor. Now I only need to make sure that you upload the level after beating it to make sure that it is actually beatable.



So if you got this far, please share the game with someone that you think would enjoy it!

Have a great weekend,
Kevin

[kevin andersson]

I just wanted to share some good news regarding the Hoplegs demo.
People really seem to love it and it makes me very happy to hear that!






Here's some stats. All to the left is the announcement and to the right is two days of Steam Festival.




Someone reached the top spot and changed their name to a very encouraging name which is incredible! :D

IF you want to try it on your own then you can go here and download it! Hope that you have fun!

Hoplegs DEMO

[kevin andersson]

Things are getting close to the Early Access release, no date announcement yet though. Game is progressing forward really well and I think that the story levels are finished, if not then it’s only some small touches on it! If you haven’t already then go ahead and wishlist it on Steam! You know it helps a lot with the Steam algorithm.

WISHLIST ON STEAM

Castle Decorations
Art has always been what’s most difficult for me, but I doubled down on the castle decorations in order to feel satisfied. I do believe that I reached a point where it’s on the same level with the other environments in the game.



Cutscene and In-Game Story
I’ve got the cutscenes in the game to set up the story and help the player with a motive to continue when times are tough. I know that not everyone will listen to it which is totally okay, but I’ve tried to add some in-game narrator dialogs that play throughout some levels in order to keep pushing the story and reminding the player what’s going on. Some of these dialogs are generic and available in the level editor so players will be able to add those in their own levels, I think it can be pretty cool to see what people will do with it!



Level Editor Safety
So just as in Mario Maker you need to complete the level in order to upload it to Steam Workshop. Just to make sure that every level that is uploaded can be completed. I think it’s good to look at other games and see what’s working and use that. Learn from others!



Level Editor Experiment
Something I like to do is to play around with different ideas for what levels could be created in the level editor that wouldn’t work in a story level. The latest test is a golf level, it would work if you add a button by the flag that triggers a door to open for you to progress further! I guess we’ll see what creative levels people can make!



Accessibility
So I strongly believe in accessibility and even though Hoplegs is a difficult game I want to make sure that as many people as possible can play and enjoy their time with the game. So I’ve made a final run (for now) to add more accessibility. Some hiding backgrounds, slow down time or allow extra jump force. The goal is to be able to give the controller to a 10 y/o kid and make sure they could beat the game.



That’s all for this time, I’m working very hard on Hoplegs and I can feel that it’s going to be in a really good state by Early Access. The plan is Q2 so between April and June. I will let you all know when I’m ready to announce the date!

Thank you all for the support you give me over on Twitch as well.
Until next time,
Kevin

[JobLeonard]

Looking forward to the early access, maybe I can talk some of my buddies into coop shenanigans



You're getting too good at this, that jump up, left-wall jump, right-wall jump was smoooooth

[oahda]

Don't have much to say other than that these updates are all good! Looking solid. And more importantly, fun!

[kevin andersson]

Looking forward to the early access, maybe I can talk some of my buddies into coop shenanigans



You're getting too good at this, that jump up, left-wall jump, right-wall jump was smoooooth

Hey thank you! :D Note that the coop will arrive in the first big update during the Early Access. I will go out with a detailed roadmap so people know what will happen!

Don't have much to say other than that these updates are all good! Looking solid. And more importantly, fun!

I appreciate the support! :D

[Alain]

Hoplegs itself has a brilliant concept. But I have a hunch that things like the "golf mechanic" (maybe in higher levels?) could be a golden ticket to indie fame and fortune Your game is unique and has qualities that make it very streamable without aiming for that in the first place. I am confident that Hoplegs can really become an indie hit. Amazing work, Kevin, keep it up!

[kevin andersson]

Hoplegs itself has a brilliant concept. But I have a hunch that things like the "golf mechanic" (maybe in higher levels?) could be a golden ticket to indie fame and fortune Your game is unique and has qualities that make it very streamable without aiming for that in the first place. I am confident that Hoplegs can really become an indie hit. Amazing work, Kevin, keep it up!

Alain thank you so much for that comment, I'm doing the best I can to make sure that it's in a good state when it's being released. I'm also glad that someone else see the potential in it! :D

[kevin andersson]

It's late and I need to sleep but I just had to share the announcement! Hoplegs is coming out on April 22!

Check out the trailer here! :D

[Alain]

It's late and I need to sleep but I just had to share the announcement! Hoplegs is coming out on April 22!

That's great news, congratulations!

[kevin andersson]

It's late and I need to sleep but I just had to share the announcement! Hoplegs is coming out on April 22!

That's great news, congratulations!

Thank you so much Alain!


Also to any press that might come across this and want a key, reach out to me on Twitter @AnderssonKev or email [email protected]

[JobLeonard]

Congratulations!

Just showed the trailer to a few friends. One of them said it "looks more frustrating than getting over it", which I found interesting. He pointed out that it's not clear from the trailer that the level design wasn't trying to make you lose tons of progress with every mistake (unlike that other game).

I can imagine it's a tricky thing to show off what particular sweet spot of frustrating and fun the game has.

[kevin andersson]

Congratulations!

Just showed the trailer to a few friends. One of them said it "looks more frustrating than getting over it", which I found interesting. He pointed out that it's not clear from the trailer that the level design wasn't trying to make you lose tons of progress with every mistake (unlike that other game).

I can imagine it's a tricky thing to show off what particular sweet spot of frustrating and fun the game has.

Thank you so much for sharing with your friends!

Yeah it's been a challenge to figure out what to show and how to show it to get the message across. I've got some more opportunities to make trailers since I've got some bigger updates coming out during the Early Access

[JobLeonard]

To be fair, the one guy who was critical hates platforming games of all kinds, so there's definitely some bias at work there. The other guy who does like them instantly fell in love with the concept

[kevin andersson]

I see, yeah the game might not be for everyone. I'm just glad that I've found new ways to have fun with the game for the past year :D

[kevin andersson]

This is the final update… before the game comes out. I can’t believe that the day is almost here. I know that it’s not over once the game is out since it will be in Early Access and I’ve got plans. But it’s a big milestone, let’s not forget that!

I’ll just jump right into what I’ve done lately, a lot of fine tuning so I’m sticking to the bigger updates.

NPC + Quest System
I wanted to make an attempt to make a fetch quest, usually they aren’t that fun but when you’re dragging physics objects they become more fun! To top this off I slapped a label on the object that says “fragile” which made me laugh out loud the first time I tried it.



Workshop + Level Editor Updates
Something I look forward to is highlighting community created levels so I’ve added a simple way to press a button in the menu to go straight to the featured community level. This level can easily be swapped out through a link on my website so I don’t have to update the game to change these.

And I hope to encourage people to play a lot of custom levels in one session so I’ve got a queue system there as well. The dream is for content creators to say things like “I will play your levels” and queue them up.

For the editor it’s now easier to see what the static camera will see, a small and simple fix but it sure does a lot while you’re working on your level.



Customization
I’m a big fan of customization and collecting full sets so I had to add that as well.
So there’s a full chicken outfit that you can unlock. I also made sure that with every face there’s a different voice.
The chicken does sound like a chicken and the robot’s got some effect on it!



environment
I’m always a bit scared to try and make brand new areas but I wanted to have something in the story that breaks off to switch it up. So the background is a gradient from orange to purple and all trees are very tall. I do believe that I achieved that after watching some people play through the game.



Thank you all for supporting me this far, the next step is releasing in Early Access. During Early Access I’ll release Co-Op and Versus mode!

Don’t forget to wishlist the game as well!
On Tuesday the 13th I will livestream myself playing Hoplegs with a dance mat… You don’t want to miss that. 6pm CEST if you’re interested over at my Twitch channel

[oahda]

Congrats! Getting this far is no small feat. Transporting the crate looks like a lot of fun. Best of luck!